Rapid mapping of RNA 3' and 5' ends

In recent years, an enormous progress has been made in applied genomics leading to identification and isolation of novel cDNAs. However, most attempts result in the acquisition of transcribed sequences that represent only a part of the mRNA's complete sequence. Rapid Amplification of cDNA Ends (RACE) is a technique used in molecular biology to obtain the full length sequence of an RNA transcript found within a cell. Since the first report of this technique, many significant improvements have been made on the basic approach. This chapter describes the most recent update of the relatively simple and versatile classic RACE protocol.